Developer: BANDAI NAMCO Amusement Lab Inc.
Platform: Switch
Genre: Music/Dance
Publisher: BANDAI NAMCO GAMES Inc.
Taiko No Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival is a game from the Taiko No Tatsujin series. This game contains a lot more newer features than the previous games. As the title says, the game is a rhythm game where you follow the beat of a song and play out controls accordingly. Taiko No Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival is developed by BANDAI NAMCO Amusement Inc. and published by BANDAI NAMCO GAMES Inc. This game is only available for the Switch.
Taiko No Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival is a game you can play by yourself, with another player or even with a total of four players. You: are brought on a journey with Don-chan and his friend Kumo-kyun who are drumming experts; that want to move to the city of Omiko. The main menu of the game consists of five separate lands that you can choose from. The main; story mode, which is the Thunder Shrine (Taiko Mode), can be played by up to 2 players. This is where you find a large selection of music and can earn Don Coins, which help progress the story, drum level and earn rewards. Taiko Land is where you can play with up to four players locally, and this includes many party game modes such as Great Drum Toy War, DON-chan Band and Run! Ninja Dojo. Each game mode plays differently from the others but is; loads of fun! Dondoko Town is where you can play against players online. The online matches consist of ranked and room matches. To play online, you do need the Nintendo Switch Online Subscription. The My Room island is where you can fully customise your DON-chan’s outfit as well as play; better-looking playing cards and many more. If you want, you can also go to the Store where you can buy outfits, instruments and more items. The game is lots of fun when playing by yourself or with others.
The controls of the game; are very easy to get used to, and you really only need one joy-con to play. When starting the game, you are given a tutorial on how the controls work, but what’s interesting about this game is that it can work with three different types of controllers; a joy-con, a pro controller and a drum. Yes, you can get your very; own Taiko No Tatsujin drum controller to immerse yourself into the gaming experience even better. I find the motion control to be a lot more fun than when using the buttons on the controllers, as it actually feels like you’re hitting to beat on a drum.
The game includes many cute and intriguing story clips that are narrated through these puppets. It portrays Japanese culture as they are heavily into puppet theatre, and the way most cutscenes are shown between DON-chan and Kumo-kyun are extremely; adorable. Everything about this game is; so vibrant, poppy and just shouts endearing. When playing rounds of the game, there are many animations like little audience members at the bottom dancing to you hitting the beat of the song, which; I find so lovely. There really is no other rhythm game that can beat; Taiko No Tatsujin.I have previously played games like OSU and Muse Dash, but none of them gives me the same type of excitement that Taiko No Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival gives. Besides the song library, there’s also music that plays in the main menu, which; sounds just like you’re going to the festival. I also really; love the sound effects and little Japanese dialogues that are being shouted out throughout the game. Pretty much every single detail put into this game is so much fun and really gets you in the mood to just want to play to the beat.
There are a lot of different things about this game that I love. First, there is a huge; song library that you can choose from. When playing the Taiko Mode, there are three headings which include a library, taiko music pass, and separately sold songs. The last two headings are ones you can buy to access the songs you’d like. The library consists of 77 songs that range in genre: pop, anime, vocaloid music, variety, classical, game music and Namco original. Music Pass has the same genre but a much larger variety (683 songs). It may seem annoying that you have to pay additional to unlock the other songs, but the price for having the pass for a month of 90 days is really; cheap. Plus, you can get a 7-day free trial to see if there’s anything that interests you. Personally, I found myself trying to master a lot of; anime songs like Kaikai Kitan, Gurenge, Into The Night, and Moonlight. I really enjoyed trying out every single; song and finding the ones I liked best. You are also able to create your own playlist to make it easy to access the songs you want. So, when selecting a song, you can pick from 4 different difficulties: easy, normal, hard and extreme each with corresponding stars to indicate the difficulty. Stars differ from song to song, like easy difficulty does not always mean a set of 3 stars, it varies on the song, and this adds; great competitiveness to the game, which is really fun. I also like how the more you play you earn taiko points and don coins. Taiko points are given when you do certain missions and play in the taiko world. Each time you complete a level, you; receive rewards like trophies, titles, and greetings. These also help progress with the story so you unlock more of the cutscene dialogues.
Another thing that I loved about this game was how chaotic things can get during party mode. Depending on the game mode you; choose to play with four people, things can be extremely hectic. What I did not like as much was that for some of the game; modes, the song library was limited to only like seven songs which do not give you a great variety to choose from. My favourite game mode would definitely have to be the Run! Ninja Dojo which had a great selection of songs but also was the most competitive game mode to play with friends or family. Another detail I liked about the game was the hint screens that are shown with the cute drawings, that if you pay attention to them, can really help with some areas of the game. Overall the game has so much to offer and is extremely fun.
If you want to play a game where you can live your drumming dream or just play to the music, then Taiko No Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival is the game for you. It offers great control accessibility and offers; gameplay with yourself or even up to 4 people. There is a large music library you can choose to play from and try to even place in the highest rank amongst others online. The game is not your average rhythm game and truly goes; out of its way to offer a fun experience, so be sure to check out Taiko No Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival!
Overall: 9/10
This is S & S. We are world game explorers. We play games. We have played over 10,000+ games! We travel, we write reviews AND we play more games!!!!
